Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/493

A STUDY OF PLATONIC TERMINOLOGY. 479 It is to be noted, however, that these last suggest also at the same time another image, already applied, as was seen before also, in the use of the preposition in, and of the words indicating presence, viz. : the image of the eiBij as ingredients or elements taking part in the composition of single objects and in the determination of those resemblances among them which justify their being called by the same name. No less important than this metaphor of participation (//.e#et<?) is the other of imitation (/AI/Z^OY?) according to which the ei8r} are described as models and all things, on the other hand, as copies (6fj,oi(Ofj,aTa) of them. A sample of a discussion of the difficulties connected with a too literal and material interpretation of both these meta- phors is afforded us in the Parmenides, where Socrates tries to evade them by having recourse to other comparisons, e.g., that of a sail spread over the heads of a group of people, or of the day, which is the same in different places, which comparisons are ably utilised by Parmenides for the de- ducing of more and more absurd conclusions, as confutations of the theory. One striking point in this discussion is that in which Socrates explicitly declares that, by speaking of the partici- pation of things in the eiBi], his fundamental meaning is to express merely a resemblance between the eiSrj and the things corresponding to them. With which declaration it is useful to compare the well-known observation of Aristotle (Metaph., I, 6) in which, comparing the Platonic theory of the elSrj with the views of the Pythagoreans, he describes the former as consisting only in the mere substitution of one word for another (Tldra)v TOVVOJACI /j.Ta/3dXa)v). In contrast with other material objects, visible and tangible (opcafjueva KCU yLtera^etpt^o/iei/a), the eiSr) are described as ac- cessible only to the mind (Stdvoia) and the reason (XO'YO?, ~oyta-fj,6<;) (Rep., vi., 134 A, 135 E). The position taken up by Plato when dealing with those who for such a reason refused to admit that the ei&r) were something, is represented in the clearest manner in the Sophistes, where the stranger, after laying stress on the necessity of exactly denning what must be understood by existing (rL Trod' ol i<yovre^ avro [TO ov 8r)ovv riyovvrai ri TTore /3ouecr$e (rrjfjiaiveiv oTrorav ov (^deyjea'de, Soph., 244 A) brings forward, poetically comparing their opposition to the struggle of the Titans against the Gods (^^avro^a^id), on the one side those for whom what exists is only what can be grasped and seen, and on the other those who affirm and